


Plans for the Weekend

by provocative_envy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Lawyers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, F/M, Humor, Light Angst, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 10:07:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25348966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/provocative_envy/pseuds/provocative_envy
Summary: “Draco,” Lavender chirps, dipping her chin. “And Hermione! Gang’s all here!”Hermione forces herself to smile back. “Lavender. Good morning. We are not a gang.”
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Lavender Brown/Parvati Patil
Comments: 175
Kudos: 571





	1. The Difference Between 'Eggshell' and 'Ecru'

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. lol
> 
> 2\. it's been a minute huh
> 
> 3\. this fic will be ~10 chapters & 30k words, give or take - it's not finished yet, but tomorrow is my BIRTHDAY and i was tired of sitting on this and time is fake, so. i'm guessing the next chapter will go up in 2/3 weeks? and the chapter after that in another 2/3 weeks? and then the remaining chapters should be ready for weekly posting. this is a pretty conservative timeline tbh it could be faster than that
> 
> 4\. anyone who knows anything about actual inheritance law in the united states is going to want to read this story with either very low expectations or a lot of alcohol on hand because there is. an absolutely obscene. amount of Rom-Com Logic used throughout and some of it is weirdly relevant to the plot!!!! if you went to law school: i am SORRY, i did NOT try my best and i did NOT do any real research but i DID watch a youtube video in which a second-year law student fact-checked legally blonde so that's the level of competence we're working with here
> 
> 5\. i don't actually know what the eventual rating of this is going to be - i have Sexual Activity penciled into the outline later on but i'm not sure how much detail i'll go into. tags will be updated as we go. 
> 
> 6\. I TRULY CAN'T BELIEVE HOW LONG IT'S BEEN SINCE I'VE WRITTEN DRAMIONE Y'ALL I FEEL LIKE A BATTLE HARDENED ROMAN SOLDIER RETURNING FROM A LONG GRISTLY MARCH ACROSS *SPINS WHEEL* ANATOLIA WHO JUST WANTS TO KNOW IF MY WIFE HAD ME DECLARED DEAD OR NOT AFTER I DIDN'T WRITE TO HER FOR TWELVE YEARS
> 
> 7\. comments/kudos/etc very much appreciated, i'll try my best to reply, thank you for reading ❤
> 
> xoxo

* * *

It sounds dramatic—hyperbolic, even—but agreeing to meet Lavender Brown for pub trivia once a month is the worst mistake Hermione has ever made.

Ever.

In her _life_.

It isn’t Lavender’s fault, per se. Lavender is fine. Unoffensive. Pleasant, really, if increasingly tipsy, borderline indecent play-by-play narration of all the first dates she can see from their customary table in the back corner of the bar is your idea of a good time. It isn’t Hermione’s, to be clear, but she can admit that there’s a certain charm to Lavender’s brand of earnest, lighthearted humor. It’s fun. Lavender is fun.

Lavender is friendly.

Which is to say—Lavender has a lot of friends. Bizarre friends. Unexpected friends. Friends who Hermione would have never believed were actually, humanly capable of adhering to the most basic tenets of friendship if she hadn’t seen it firsthand, with her own two eyes. Friends who breezed through law school on the generationally wealthy coattails of their family name and who only occupy the cubicle immediately adjacent to Hermione’s because that same family name is _literally on the building_ and who can’t keep their stupid Orangina bottles or their stupid Fendi messenger bags or their stupid runway model long legs on _their_ side of the personal-space bubble Hermione had—very helpfully—marked with a roll of bright blue painter’s tape.

So.

No.

_Lavender_ is not the variable of the meeting-for-pub-trivia-once-a-month equation that Hermione finds so objectionable. So distasteful. So appalling and irritating and frustrating and arrogant and smug, patronizing _,_ obnoxious, argumentative for the _sake_ of it and nothing else—

It’s Malfoy.

It’s Draco Malfoy.

It’s always been Draco Malfoy, and it’s always _going_ to be Draco Malfoy, and this whole disaster—which, for the record, is entirely centered upon, gravitating towards, and orbiting around Draco Malfoy—could have been avoided, no, _would_ have been avoided, point-blank, guaranteed, if Hermione had simply stayed home.

If Hermione had simply _refused_ to _sit next to him_.

* * *

Wait.

No.

Rewind.

Back up.

Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

* * *

_W E D N E S D A Y_

**8:41 AM**

“Granger.”

“Malfoy.”

“You’re late.”

“Oh, so you _do_ know what time we’re supposed to be here in the morning.”

“Better than you, apparently.”

“Crouch wanted a bagel.”

“I’m sure he did.”

“What does that mean?”

“Excuse me?”

“ _I’m sure he did_.”

“He went gluten-free two months ago and then fell off the wagon at that luncheon with Bagman and the leprechauns in Eataly last weekend.”

“Stop calling them that.”

“Why? What am I supposed to call them?”

“ _Irish_. They’re Irish.”

“Oh, come on.”

“What?”

“That has zero personality.”

“So says the walking white paint swatch.”

“Do we need to have another talk about the difference between ‘eggshell’ and ‘ecru’? Because we can.”

“I, too, can regurgitate an HGTV blog post.”

“Doubtful. Your apartment is basically just a showroom for soulless Swedish minimalism.”

“Just say it.”

“What?”

“IKEA. You can say it. It’s not a swear word.”

“No _shit_ it isn’t a—”

Lavender Brown swoops in, then, effectively shutting Malfoy up, a hairspray-crunchy, tension-snapping whirlwind of impractically high heels and impossibly floral perfume. She plants herself dead-center between their desks, directly on top of the—expertly leveled, carefully measured—line of painter’s tape, and then she _beams_. At both of them. Like sunshine. Like one of those fever-hot stage-left spotlights that can functionally blind you for several seconds if you don’t blink fast enough.

“Draco,” Lavender chirps, dipping her chin. “And Hermione! Gang’s all here!”

Hermione forces herself to smile back. “Lavender. Good morning. We are not a gang.”

“It _is_ a good morning, though, isn’t it?” Lavender’s smile somehow, inexplicably, stretches wider. Glistens. Sparkles. Is there glitter in her lipstick? “I just wanted to pop in, say _hey,_ make sure we’re all on the same page for tonight—remember the dress code!”

Malfoy picks up his ostentatious green fountain pen and clicks it, just the once. Hermione grits her teeth. It’s an innocuous sound. Bland. Banal. Just another background interlude on the standard, well-documented soundtrack of a modern office. Phones ring. Printers whir. Elevators swish, and Keurigs beep, and Draco Malfoy smirks and loosens his tie and clicks his awful little custom-gripped monogrammed pen.

“What’s tonight?” he asks, twirling the pen around until he’s only using the knuckles of two fingers—long, elegant, capably callused fingers —to hold it up. “Ah, Christ, it isn’t someone’s birthday, is it? I’m _so_ sick of cupcakes.”

Hermione wrinkles her nose. “It’s the middle of the week.”

“What, people can’t have birthdays in the middle of the week?”

“That isn’t what I said.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Then what did you say?”

“I _said_ that _it’s the middle of the week_.”

“Which I _interpreted_ as you saying that _people can’t have birthdays in the middle of the week_.”

“Of course you did. You’re a textualist.”

“Oh, my god. Again? This? Really? That isn’t a synonym for _serial killer_ , you know that, right?”

“What I _know_ is that I was _clearly_ implying that having a birthday _party_ in the middle of the work week was less than ideal for those of us who don’t live our lives on Berlin _club rat_ time.”

“ _Clearly_ is doing some real heavy lifting there, Granger.”

“Meanwhile, most of _your_ vocabulary is regularly skipping leg day.”

Malfoy’s upper lip curls. “So says the walking pair of _granny panties_ —”

“Anyway, no, it isn’t someone’s birthday,” Lavender interjects, looking almost unfairly amused. Almost unfairly fond. Like she’s indulging them. Like they are, in fact, _a_ them. A gang. A unit. An entity. Hermione and Malfoy, Malfoy and Hermione. A _plural pronoun_. “It’s pub trivia night!”

* * *

_W E D N E S D A Y_

**9:12 PM**

Parvati Patil is terrifying.

Hermione can recall—with a kind of bemused, long-suffering wistfulness —a time in the not too distant past when that wasn’t the case, when Parvati was just Lavender’s new girlfriend, pretty and polite and immaculately groomed. When the most intimidating thing about her, about her relationship with Lavender, was how _connected_ they seemed to be with each another. Extraordinarily connected. Intimidatingly connected. All rapid-fire gossip and incoherent inside jokes and shrieking laughter, tender hand-holding, nose kisses and shoulder massages and gentle, full-body embraces—it was like they were speaking a different language, communicating on a totally separate plane of existence; invitation-only, RSVP required.

Hermione imagines that’s what love is, generally.

Romantic love, at least, and only if you’re lucky enough to recognize it.

Regardless, Parvati, like Lavender, is fine. Unoffensive. Pleasant, really, if enigmatic smiles and snide, saccharine commentary about all the questionable first date fashion statements she can see from their customary table in the back corner of the bar is your idea of a good time. It isn’t Hermione’s, to be clear, but she can admit that there’s a certain charm to Parvati’s brand of slyly understated, passive-aggressive humor. It’s fun. Parvati is fun.

Parvati is observant.

Which is to say—Parvati makes a lot of observations. She observes. She notices. She _discerns_. She’s clever about it, too, ruthless, focused, uncannily aware of precisely which buttons to push, which bruises to poke at, which sore, scabbed-over, partially-healed wounds to expose to the elements; the grating, intrusive, ludicrously persistent elements, like a tornado that won’t stop trying to tear the roof off your house, or a thunderstorm that won’t stop violently rattling your windows. 

Similarly, going to pub trivia night when Parvati is in attendance is a lot like booking an exorbitantly expensive non-refundable Caribbean cruise smack-dab in the middle of hurricane season.

“Oh, are you guys together now?” Parvati asks, too casually. She’s sipping at her gin and tonic, radiating bright-eyed, bushy-tailed innocence, her eyeshadow dark and smoky and mysterious. “It’s about ti—oh! Oh, shoot, I just assumed, sorry. Since you showed up together. Like, _together._ Oops. My bad.”

In the rickety wooden chair next to Hermione’s, Malfoy doesn’t so much as twitch. Well, his face doesn’t. His hands do. They’re cupped around his pint glass of gross, pond-murky, micro-brewed imperial stout, and his palms make a barely-there squeaking sound as they slip and slide over the built-up condensation.

“Oops,” he deadpans. “Your bad.”

Lavender waggles her fingers at the freshly clocked-in bartender, her charm bracelet tinkling. “Okay, so, Parvati and I already chose our team name on the way over, we’re—”

“ _Victorious Secret_ ,” Parvati says, punctuating each syllable with a sarcastic flourish of her cocktail straw. “Cute, right?”

Lavender gives an enthusiastic nod. “So cute.”

“Super cute.”

“The _cutest_.”

Malfoy doesn’t groan—he’s too refined for that, too pretentious and well-bred and self-possessed—but he does emit a kind of scratchy, low-pitched, rumbling sigh. “Where is everyone else?”

“Hm?” Lavender slurps at her comically oversized margarita. “What’s that? God, this is amazing, it’s like a tequila-flavored Otter Pop.”

“Where is everyone else?” Malfoy repeats, shifting in his seat, spreading his legs a fraction wider. His knee grazes Hermione’s, just like it always does at work. Stupid legs. Stupid _Malfoy_. “Are we waiting? For them? Or is it just us?”

Parvati takes a cool, unnecessarily long sip of her drink, her gaze flicking between Hermione and Malfoy. Piercing. Searching. Assessing. _Knowing_. Hermione firmly resists the urge to fidget. Parvati works for _Teen Vogue._ She writes _horoscopes_ for a living. She does not _know_ things.

“I guess no one else is coming,” Lavender says, utterly guileless. “Oh, well! More fun for us! Did you guys come up with a name yet?”

“Oh, are we—we’re a team?” Hermione’s nostrils flare. “Him and—Malfoy and—okay. Sure. I didn’t, um, I didn’t really _agree_ to—”

Malfoy flaps his wrist at her, dismissive. “What do we get when we win?”

“A Visa gift card,” Parvati answers easily. “And a free round of shots.”

“Do you need help coming up with a name?” Lavender presses. “ _Ooh,_ how about, like, _Legal Eagles?_ Get it? Because you’re lawyers? And . . . American? Like, um, like eagles? Which are also American?”

“Cute, babe,” Parvati coos. “ _And_ patriotic.”

Malfoy drags the pad of his thumb along the rim of his glass. Tapping. Lingering. There’s a telltale, grinding tension in his jaw, squaring it off, sharpening the angle, emphasizing the prickly glimmer of gold-blond stubble that’s catching the overhead light. It’s dim, in the bar. Hazy. Everything feels and looks slightly blurry, slightly faded, slightly smudged; like the details don’t matter.

For what it’s worth, Hermione fervently wishes that were actually true.

Malfoy waves his phone at her. “Remember when Bagman made us all watch _Mean Girls_ during orientation?”

“We are not calling ourselves The Plastics.”

“What about The Desperate Wannabes?”

“Projecting again, are we?”

“Just trying to be inclusive.”

“Unfriendly Black Hotties, it is.”

“ _Now_ who’s projecting?”

“More like now who’s _telling_ on themselves.”

“Do you have any legitimate suggestions, or—”

Hermione drains her vodka soda and then tilts her head back as far as it’ll go. “The Sexually Active Band Geeks, obviously.”

Malfoy snorts, just quietly enough, just helplessly enough, that she actually glances over at him, her eyebrows raised, only to find him biting his lip and covering his mouth with his hand, like he’s having to physically restrain himself from laughing.

Under the table, their knees brush.

Again.

“I’ll register you as the Legal Eagles, then?” Parvati asks sweetly, just as Lavender aims _her_ phone at Hermione and Malfoy, a telltale flash and a loud, shuttering click immediately erupting. “ _So_ cute.”

* * *

_W E D N E S D A Y_

**10:54 PM**

“Carlo Collodi.”

“Sansa Stark.”

“ _West Side Story._ ”

“Coca-Cola.”

“Eight.”

“Red, blue, yellow, green, orange, white.”

“Vancouver.”

“Muggsy Bogues.”

“Paddington Bear.”

“Béarnaise.”

“No, that’s wrong.”

“What? No, it’s not.”

“It’s hollandaise.”

“Uh, _no_ , it’s _not_.”

“Béarnaise isn’t considered a mother sauce. That’s what the ‘maternal’ clue is referencing. You’re thinking of bechamel.”

“I _know_ what I’m thinking.”

“Fine. Whatever. You’re still wrong.”

“I am _not_ —”

“Béarnaise isn’t even made with lemon juice, it’s made with _vinegar_.”

“The question isn’t about—”

“Wow,” Lavender says, squinting blearily at Hermione, and then Malfoy, and then at her and Parvati’s mostly blank answer sheet, which is littered with scattered grains of margarita salt and candy-red droplets of Campari. “You guys are, like, crazy good at this. _Crazy_.”

“Yes,” Malfoy confirms. “We are.”

Hermione frowns. “Is it really not béarnaise?”

“It’s really not.”

“How do you—”

“You two make a _fantastic_ team, honestly,” Lavender goes on, swaying closer to Parvati. Lavender’s cheeks are flushed, her hair escaping its complicated-looking braid-nest on the crown of her head. “It’s like you’re telepathic. Like you’re—like you’re _mind-reading._ ”

Malfoy stiffens, his grip on the runty yellow trivia pencil growing conspicuously tight. His left arm is slung over the back of Hermione’s chair, his body angled towards hers—he smells like beer and cologne and something else, something cold and crisp and metallic, vaguely reminiscent of an icy sidewalk or a bank of freshly fallen snow; he’s rolled the sleeves of his checkered gray shirt up to his elbows, sloppily, unevenly, imperfectly, and the strangeness of that, of the implicit intimacy, is all she can bring herself to think about.

Presently.

Currently.

How summarily out of character it is for any aspect of his physical appearance to be sloppy, to be uneven, to be imperfect—

“Right,” he says, abruptly lowering his arm and tossing the pencil aside and shoving his own chair back, legs scraping against the sticky, unpolished bar floor. “I’m going to get another beer.”

“ _Ooh_ , me, too,” Lavender trills, lurching to her feet, unsteady on sky-high Barbie-pink stilettos. “Or, well, not a _beer,_ ew, but I want a martini olive _so bad_ , oh, my god—”

Parvati smiles serenely as she watches them go. “They’re so funny.”

Hermione hums, noncommittal.

“Draco, especially,” Parvati says, the floaty crimson chiffon of her tank top rustling as she leans forward. “He’s subtle about it, though. Isn’t he?”

“Subtle? _Malfoy?”_

“Yeah, like, he pretends to take everything so seriously, like he’s this big grumpy elitist baby—”

Hermione chokes on a sip of her drink. “He _is_.”

“—but he’s pretty sensitive, obviously—”

“ _Obviously?”_

“—and I think he’d communicate more effectively, like, _interpersonally_ if he learned how to laugh at himself and not just at other people.”

“That’s . . . insightful.”

“Anyway,” Parvati says with a breezy shrug, “what I’m trying to get at—like, okay. So. Hermione. Sometimes, the harder we fight something? The more inevitable it becomes. Like quicksand.”

“Quicksand?” Hermione echoes. “What?”

“Or maybe a bamboo finger trap,” Parvati muses, idly toying with one of her dangling hoop earrings. Her discarded cocktail straw is on the table, neatly folded into a zigzagging accordion shape. “You have to _give in_ a bit, you know?”

“No,” Hermione says, feeling faint. “I don’t know.”

“Trust that the trap itself isn’t really a trap so much as it is a vessel for an equitable exchange of both positive _and_ negative energy.”

Hermione stares imploringly at the remaining vodka in her glass. “Isn’t it also, um . . . isn’t it just a puzzle? The finger trap? As in, um, the puzzle _is_ the trap?”

“No,” Parvati says, pursing her lips, “the puzzle is not the trap. The trap isn’t real. The puzzle is the _compromise_.”

Hermione blinks, unsure of how to respond. Is she even supposed to respond? This strikes her, with exceptional clarity and a not-insignificant prickle of unease, as the sort of conversation she does not, under any circumstances, want to have. With anyone. Ever. At all. Should she change the subject? Create a diversion? Ask Parvati what a rising moon is?

Before Hermione has to actually decide, Malfoy struts back over, a bottle of water in one hand and an enormous, grease-dappled basket of French fries in the other. No beer. No martini olives. His jeans are dark and tight, his belt buckle sleek and shiny. It’s remarkable, almost, how _put-together_ he is; confidently, gracefully navigating a bar whose primary features are a unisex bathroom and a jukebox that’s been stuck on a Bruce Springsteen track for the past three years.

“Here,” Malfoy announces, cracking open the seal of the water bottle and thrusting it at her. “Drink this.” He jerks his chin at the fries. “And eat those. My shoes are worth more than your student loan debt, Granger, I’m not letting you puke on them.”

“I’m not drunk.”

“Not _yet_.”

“Aren’t we leaving soon? You promised I’d be home by midnight.”

“So?”

“ _So_ , it isn’t like there’s _time_ for me to go rush the bar and get _hammered_.”

“The fact that you’re using words like ‘hammered’ means you’re well past halfway there. _Eat_.”

Hermione blinks again, wondering if she should be offended by any of this—by his prissy comments, by his condescending tone, by how _tenderly_ a very small, very inconsequential, very technically negligible part of her is now aching—but then Lavender is dropping back into her seat across the table and planting an adorably affectionate kiss on Parvati’s cheek and whatever odd, doubtless alcohol-induced fog that had settled over Hermione’s brain begins to dissipate.

She shakes her head.

Picks up a fry.

Mulls and chews and swallows.

* * *

That could’ve been the end of it.

That should’ve been the end of it.

The end of the beginning of a perfectly boring story in which nothing happens and no one is inconvenienced.

It is _not_ the end of it.

* * *


	2. Troglodytes in Hockey Jerseys

* * *

_T H U R S D A Y_

**12:22 PM**

“Doesn’t Bagman have assistants for this?”

“Allegedly.”

“Well, where are they?”

“Not here.”

“That’s illuminating, thank you.”

“Why do you think I know where his assistants are? Am I a babysitter?”

“Uh, yeah. You are. You dated what’s-his-face for _how_ long?”

_“What’s-his-face.”_

“Am I supposed to remember his name?”

“Yes, you are, especially if you’re going to bring him up when I’m trapped in an _elevator_ with you.”

“Door’s right there, Granger.”

“Oh, is it? Is it _really?_ ”

“Do _you_ even remember his name?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“What kind of _deflection_ is that?”

“His name was—”

“It doesn’t matter what his name was.”

“That is _obviously_ not true.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“My _point_ was not related to him, specifically—”

“Then why mention him at all?”

“—but how you have a _type,_ and how that _type_ requires extensive babysitting.”

“I have a type?”

“Yeah, you have a _type_.”

“I do not.”

“You _do_.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“What _now?”_

“This—this _errand_ is menial labor, that’s _what now_.”

“Picking lunch up for our boss is not menial labor.”

“Yes, it is.”

“ _No_ , it isn’t.”

“This is _beneath_ us.”

“Speak for yourself.”

“Fine, this is beneath _me_.”

“There we go.”

“There we—what?”

“Your little temper tantrum is about _you_ , not _us_.”

“How are you not outraged by this?”

“Because _this_ is an every-other-day _errand_ for me.”

“Seriously?”

“Not all of us are sixth-generation nepotists.”

“My father doesn’t work here.”

“ _Anymore_.”

“How can you say that with a straight face?”

“Do not bring my _face_ into this.”

“It’s troglodytes in hockey jerseys, for the record.”

“What?”

“Your type,” Malfoy says, just as the elevator smoothly lurches to a halt, doors swishing open. “That’s what it is. Troglodytes in hockey jerseys.”

Hermione’s lips part helplessly, in either consternation or despair. “Only one of them even played hockey!” she protests, hurrying after Malfoy, the gold-leaf flecked twine handles of the takeout bag chafing against her palm. “And what about _your_ type? Should we discuss that, too?”

Malfoy stops walking. “ _My_ type?”

“Yes, _your_ type.”

“What do _you_ know about—” He lifts both of his hands, his own takeout bag hitting him in the chest, and then physically, obnoxiously _finger-quotes_. “ _My type?”_

“Bleach blonde—”

“Wrong.”

“—J. Crew catalogue models—”

“Wrong.”

“—with walk-in shoe closets—"

“ _Very_ wrong.”

“—and secret _plantation wedding_ Pinterest boards.”

A dark pink blush tints the high, sharp angles of Malfoy’s cheeks. “That was _one_ —”

“Exactly,” Hermione says smugly. Triumphantly. “ _One_.”

“—and she isn’t my _type_ ,” he finishes through tightly gritted teeth. “Pansy is a family friend. We grew up together. It wasn’t—I dated her in _high school_.”

“If our respective dating histories are the primary sources for your _‘type’_ hypothesis, then high school still _counts,_ ” Hermione says, a prickly, irritable sigh escaping her mouth. She isn’t sure why she’s arguing with Malfoy about this; why she’s suddenly so invested in not just having this argument, but _winning_ it, too. It isn’t like she’d ever compared herself—however privately, however bitterly—to the spray-tanned Rhode Island _show pony_ who’d gallivanted around their shared cubicle space for a week last spring, voice like honey, eyes like ice chips, long acrylic nails curled around Malfoy’s arm, digging in like talons. Like _grappling hooks._ It isn’t like Hermione had _cared_. “Unless it’s an accident. Like mine.”

Malfoy slants a disbelieving glare at her. “What does that mean?”

She shrugs, tossing her hair back with a shaky breath and a not-insignificant serving of false bravado, and methodically avoids his gaze. “It means that _I_ , personally, am not attracted to—or, am _generally_ not attracted to, um—the _type_ that you’ve referenced, which is, um, not my ideal . . .” She trails off, flustered. Why is she flustered? Why is Malfoy _watching_ her like that? So intently? Why did Bagman have to order garlic bread with his lunch? “Right. Um. _It means_ that, um, _troglodytes in hockey jerseys_ are not actually my—”

Thankfully— _blessedly_ —before she can blurt out something exceptionally, brutally, mortifyingly honest, she’s cut off by the sound of footsteps clacking crisply against snowy white marble. She feels lightheaded. Like she’s coming down with a cold; crashing from an ill-timed rush of adrenaline. Like a moment has passed that she will unequivocally be able to look back on and _know_ was different from all the other moments staggered before and after, a fork in the proverbial road, a chance to just _spit it out_ , acknowledge that yes, yeah, _yes_ , she _does_ have a type and it isn’t troglodytes in hockey jerseys so much as it’s the abject polar _opposite_ of troglodytes in hockey jerseys and there isn’t an off button for that thought, for that _want_ , it doesn’t go on vacation or hibernate for the winter or—

“Ah, there you are,” Percy Weasley drawls, slinking around the far corner of the hallway. His bowtie is plaid, red and gold and white, and his glasses are round-framed, horn-rimmed, slipping down the bridge of his nose. He peers at Malfoy like he’s a literal insect, and at Hermione like she’s—well, like she’s the flighty backstabbing workaholic who broke his baby brother’s heart, maybe. She winces. “You’re late, you realize? He’s famished.”

“There are _delivery_ _services_ for this, you realize?” Malfoy mimics meanly, arching a single snidely imperious brow and straightening his shoulders. “We would’ve been back a lot sooner if we didn’t have to trek _thirty blocks_ for a fucking _cheeseburger.”_

“He likes the pickle chips,” Percy says, sniffing as he plucks both takeout bags from their hands, giving them each a quick, entirely too patronizing once-over. His hair is styled into a stiff, over-gelled wave, higher in the front than in the back, and his freckles are stark against the subdued navy blue of his suit. “I can take it from here. You two may go.”

Malfoy snorts and gives Percy a patronizing once-over of his own, upper lip twisted in a pronounced sneer, before he spins on his heel, brushing past Hermione—unnecessarily close, in her opinion, unnecessarily _warm_ —and cupping his hand over her elbow, not quite touching her, not quite making contact, as he turns back towards the elevator. His tie—Windsor knot tugged loose, skinny tapered end unclipped—flutters out, checkered green silk grazing the wings of her collarbones and the pintuck lace paneling of her blouse.

He’s spectacularly slow to lower his arm.

To move away from her.

* * *

_T H U R S D A Y_

**4:45 PM**

Ludo Bagman is, for lack of a better word, _greasy_.

Sleazy.

Sweaty.

Exhausting.

He does not know Hermione’s name, and he only pretends to know Malfoy’s because Malfoy’s father is paying to have a saltwater infinity pool installed on the rooftop terrace for the senior partners. He wears double-breasted pinstripe suits without a tie and $3,000 custom Italian loafers without socks and he speaks with a deeply exaggerated South Jersey accent like he thinks he’s some kind of mafia don, like he thinks he’s cosplaying one of those generic background mobsters in an episode of _Boardwalk Empire_. His fingers are thick, blunt, callused from his five years of minor-league baseball glory, and his shoulders are broad, his chest barrel-shaped, his neck nonexistent. He smells like cigars and pastrami, constantly, somehow, without fail or exception, and he keeps a money clip stuffed with hundred-dollar bills right on top of his desk, in full view of whoever’s unlucky enough to be sitting on the other side of it, casually propped against the base of his tacky, gold-plated Scale of Justice figurine.

Being called to his office—with _Malfoy_ , no less—is never a good thing.

“Draco, Draco, _there_ he is,” Bagman booms cheerfully, slouching back into his seat and spreading his arms wide, like he’s delighted to see them. “All grown up, look at you, a _stud_ in—is that Armani? Of course it is. Exquisite. Oh, and, ah—Helena! Helena Geller! One of my best young associates!”

Malfoy frowns. “That isn’t her—”

“It’s Hermione, sir,” Hermione interjects, clasping her hands together. Squeezing. Praying. _Restraining herself._ “Hermione Granger.”

“Of course, of course,” Bagman says, flapping his wrist, showing off the enormous platinum Rolex strapped to the meat of it. “I’m not really a name guy, eh? Names are for the HR drones, y’know, the paper-pushers. I go man to man.” He shadowboxes for a second. “ _Mano y mano_.”

Malfoy’s frown puckers around the edges with evident disdain.

“Which _reminds_ me,” Bagman goes on, relentlessly oblivious, “you rascals really need to talk to HR about your—” He wags a finger at them like they’re recalcitrant toddlers and not comparatively esteemed albeit incredibly recent graduates of the most prestigious law school in North America. A chunky signet ring is stuck on his knuckle, glinting silver in a spear of late afternoon sunlight. “Your little tryst. Affair. _Rendezvous_.”

Hermione freezes, her heart dropping, lurching, then spring-boarding up towards her throat. _“What?”_

“Sorry,” Malfoy croaks, coughing into his fist. “What was that? I must have misheard.”

Bagman grins, indulgent. “Oh, is that how you’re playing it?”

“Playing . . . what?” Hermione asks faintly.

Malfoy takes what seems like an instinctive half-step forward. “I’m not sure where you’re getting your information, sir, but Hermione and I are _not_ —”

Bagman cuts Malfoy off with a sly chuckle and another lazy flap of his wrist. “You kids are real committed to the act, I’ll give you that,” he says, grabbing his phone off a nearby stack of—Hermione purses her lips in disapproval—confidential deposition transcripts. He hums and scrolls and taps and ultimately grunts, satisfied, as he pulls up . . . Lavender’s Instagram?

Yes.

Lavender’s Instagram.

It’s a slightly blurry photo from last night: Hermione and Malfoy sitting together on one side of the comically tiny corner table, poring over their pub trivia answer sheet. He’s staring at her, a look on his face she would swear up and down and sideways and backwards she’s never seen before—it’s wistful, it’s exasperated, it’s fond—and she’s flushed and bright-eyed and biting her lip and about two-thirds of the way to flashing a real smile, she can tell, she _can,_ and his arm is around her shoulders, comfortably draped across the back of her chair, and their hands are maybe almost touching, fingertips resting on the same pencil, their bodies angled towards each other like, like, like _magnets_ , like _puzzle pieces_ , like _gravity_ —

“This is all very hush-hush, I’m not here to bust anybody’s balls,” Bagman says breezily. Mostly to Malfoy. Exclusively to Malfoy. Hermione is not having a nervous breakdown yet, but she _is_ wondering if Bagman would actually remember she’s still in the room with them if her nervous breakdown were more imminent. “However.” A dramatic, frankly ridiculous pause. “Draco. Buddy. If you’re gonna keep a secret, you’ve gotta _keep it a secret_.”

Malfoy’s expression is cycling rapidly through an uncharacteristic display of visibly, identifiably translatable emotions. Confusion. Alarm. Caution. Indignation. Panic. His jaw is slack, his clear gray eyes darting from Bagman to Hermione to the bronze-casted catcher’s mitt masquerading as a candy dish on the built-in glass bookshelf behind Bagman’s desk.

“Sir,” Malfoy starts. Stops. Blinks. “I really don’t, um—”

“Don’t worry about it, son,” Bagman interrupts, the joints of his hulking leather desk chair creaking and whining as he swivels around. “Those _‘no-fraternization’_ policies are all bullshit. I’ve actually—I’m gonna do you a favor. How about that? I’ve got a—” He carelessly tosses his phone aside and then yanks one of his desk drawers open, rummaging around until he finds a suspiciously thin, unmarked manila folder. “Inheritance hiccup. Estranged brothers, a weird murder investigation, big fancy Rockefeller mansion, FBI got involved for a bit. It’s a goddamn soap opera, but the details don’t matter. We just need a few signatures, a little—” He makes an inexplicable scissoring motion with his fingers. “Easy. In and out. You two are gonna handle it for me.”

Malfoy’s nose twitches. “When you say _easy_ —”

“When you say _upstate_ ,” Hermione interrupts, more shrilly than she intended. “Do you—are we—does this involve _traveling?”_ She swallows, heart continuing to beat, traitorously, like it’s in a drag race with a snare drum. Next to her, only a couple of inches away, Malfoy’s standing perfectly still. Like a statue. Or a space heater. His breathing is loud. Heavy. “Traveling _together,_ that is?”

* * *

It’s another fork in the proverbial road.

Or—another fork in an only nominally, marginally different proverbial road.

The forks are the same.

The forks are always the same.

* * *

_T H U R S D A Y_

**9:03 PM**

Wine is apparently sold in cans now, which is distinctly new information to Hermione.

“It’s, like, bubbly?” Lavender makes a valiant attempt to explain, the bangles on her wrist jingling as she reaches up to idly fiddle with the ornamental pink chopsticks stabbed through her topknot. Hermione squints, reflexively scrunching up the fabric of the dusky orange sundress she’s holding. Maybe they aren’t chopsticks? Maybe they’re pencils? Paintbrushes? Weapons? “So, you know, you get those super fun, sparkly seltzer vibes, right, but it’s _wine_.”

Hermione glances at her wide-open closet—which is mostly filled with baggy, neutral-toned cardigans and sensible black pencil skirts—and then at her wide-open suitcase—which is mostly filled with lacy, revealing, vindictively-purchased underwear and a travel-sized bottle of mouthwash—and then at the slender can of “wine” sitting on her nightstand. It has trendy block lettering stamped on the side. CHARDONNAY. That _cannot_ be right. She snatches it up and takes a sip.

“Vibes,” she repeats blankly. Sagely. Darkly. “ _Vibes_ are why I have to go on a _romantic weekend getaway_ with my—”

“Work husband?” Lavender suggests, sugary-sweet. She’s lying on her stomach, head cocked, lips curved up in a smile, knees bent and ankles crossed behind her; like a billboard advertisement for either Lululemon or _The Babysitters’ Club_. “Fake boyfriend? Co-worker you unfavorably compare _every other man you meet_ to?”

“ _Arch nemesis_ ,” Hermione corrects. She takes another, more mutinous sip of wine. “Mortal enemy. Literal, physical, grossly entitled embodiment of everything I hate about _academia_ and _society_ and _capitalism_ and—and—the _patriarchy.”_

Lavender gives an emphatic, enthusiastic nod, raising her own can of wine in mock salute. “You tell ‘em, honey.”

“ _Vibes_ are why Bagman assumed the _worst_ about—it was an innocent picture!” Hermione bleats, sweeping her arm out, gesturing broadly, expansively, with the hand still grasping the sundress. “Nothing was wrong with it! Nothing was weird about it! We were just—we weren’t even—we weren’t even _touching_ , not really!”

Lavender hums, considering, before pointing her wine can at the platinum-framed Degas print hanging above Hermione’s dresser. “Did you used to do ballet?” she asks. “You _look_ like you used to do ballet, right, like, the little—the foot thing? Plié? Yeah?”

“On pointe,” Hermione answers automatically. She narrows her eyes, a wild tendril of hair escaping her ponytail, and drinks more wine. “And—no. Yes. No. I mean— _yes_ , I did do ballet, it was a tremendously useful exercise in discipline and tenacity and, um, mental focus and fortitude, but that isn’t what I—” She puffs her cheeks out, feeling _hot_ , all of a sudden. The ceiling fan is whirring, and the TV in the living room is on, a sitcom laugh-track filtering through the flimsy walls. “This is going to be a nightmare. It is already a nightmare. Can you go instead?”

At that, Lavender’s impish, teasing smile softens. “You can come clean to Bagman, you know,” she says kindly. “Just tell him he’s wrong, that it’s all a misunderstanding.”

“Yeah.”

“Or, hey, Draco could do it.”

“Maybe.”

“He totally would, too, he loves telling people they’re wrong.”

“He does,” Hermione agrees. “I know. But it’s not . . . that isn’t . . .” She hesitates, not quite sure how to articulate what she’s thinking, what she’s _feeling_ , to Lavender. _Lavender_ , who could very feasibly befriend a brick wall or a biker gang or the terrifyingly bloodthirsty great white shark from _Jaws,_ if she really put her mind to it; Lavender, who has never seemed particularly bothered by anyone underestimating her, or expecting less from her, or waiting—gleefully, resentfully—for her to trip up and fail. “I can’t refuse a case from _Bagman._ Even if it’s ridiculous. Even if it’s . . . it’s complicated.”

“Personally complicated?”

“ _Professionally_ complicated.”

Lavender drains the rest of her wine, daintily crinkling the can. “Well,” she says, doubtful, just as her phone buzzes from where it’s perched on the end of the bed. She perks up when she sees who’s calling. Texting. All of the above. “Speak of the _devil_ —”

Hermione sighs. “Must we?”

“Draco wants to know if you’re bringing a _swimsuit_ , ooh, love that for you, that’s a question with _implications_ , right?” Lavender waggles her eyebrows. “And don’t you have that really, like, _sexy_ one-piece? With the straps and the cut-outs and the really—”

“I’m going to _die_.”

“No, you aren’t,” Lavender says reassuringly.

“I _am_.”

“Of what?”

“Shame. Embarrassment.” Hermione petulantly throws the balled-up sundress into her suitcase. “A dangerously high spike in my blood pressure.”

“What’s your, um,” Lavender looks meaningfully at the lower half of Hermione’s body, “ _waxing_ situation like right now? If it’s, you know, _not great_ , we can _absolutely_ still fix it, this city never sleeps, sweetie, I have, like, thirteen Swedish estheticians on speed-dial at any given—”

“Alternatively,” Hermione muses, taking one last, lukewarm sip of her wine, “ _you_ could just kill me. It would save everyone a lot of time. And energy. And stress.”

Lavender’s phone buzzes again. “He also—okay, he wants to know if _he_ should bring a swimsuit—Parvati is going to _scream,_ oh, my god, this is such a, like, capital-D _development—_ and, oh, okay, if he _does_ bring a swimsuit should he color coordinate _his_ swimsuit with _your_ swim . . . suit . . .” Lavender pouts. “Oh. Is he joking?”

Hermione presses her lips together.

A muscle in her chest grows worrisomely taut.

Her shoulders start to shake.

And finally— _finally_ , forcefully, like a dam is bursting and a weight is lifting—she ducks her chin and closes her eyes and _laughs_.

* * *

She packs the swimsuit.

The one-piece.

With the straps and the cut-outs and the really scandalously deep neckline.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> [come join me in hell](http://www.provocative-envy.tumblr.com)


End file.
